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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23138206">stains of red</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/EasyPeasyPanic/pseuds/EasyPeasyPanic'>EasyPeasyPanic</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>my darker fics [5]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Naruto</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Drabble, Hanahaki Disease, Implied Relationships, M/M, Unrequited Love, i wrote this in a bout of insomnia so you get what you get</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-03-14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-03-14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 08:46:51</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,161</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23138206</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/EasyPeasyPanic/pseuds/EasyPeasyPanic</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>He presses the petals to his mouth, pretends they're his teacher's pale lips, tries to make himself want to make this a reality.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Senju Tobirama/Uchiha Kagami</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>my darker fics [5]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1657405</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>9</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>122</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>stains of red</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>i just found what hanahaki disease is and wow</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>Kagami isn't stupid. It's easy, to disregard him, to think more of Danzou with his sly nature and natural cunning, and Hiruzen with his easy smile and unknowing emotional manipulation, but he isn't</p><p> </p><p><em> isn't </em> any less of a shinobi than they are. He just isn't, not when he's been trained by the best of the best, by the closest thing to Gods that he's ever going to see in this lifetime. So he's not naturally cunning or perceptive, but he's trained in noticing the little things, the smaller details, Sharingan or not. So he's well aware that his sensei is in love with him. </p><p>It isn't hard to miss, the long stares, the extra touch on his shoulder, especially for a man that didn't care much for touching. That didn't stay still long enough to stare. </p><p>The coughing is another matter. Kagami doesn't notice the coughing, he isn't so naïve as to think of a cough as more than allergies or a cold. But petals, petals are so <em> so </em> hard to miss. They slip between pale, scarred fingers into the drawer of the office that Kagami has spent most of his entire life in, reporting to an actual legend. A man that's created more jutsu than another anyone else, save perhaps the Sage himself if one believed in that old legend. He hears the silent, muffled <em> wet </em>coughs through the thin door of Sensei's office when he leaves on missions, notices the crumpled camellia petals hidden in the trash bin when he returns with the report. </p><p>He sees the red stains across pale lips, smudged and wiped away save for a <em> small </em> , light touch of pink there. Like smudged lipstick on the mouth of the first girl Kagami ever kissed, and he gives a quick report so he doesn't have to see those <em> dark red eyes </em> peer at him with forced reserve. </p><p>Tobirama is many <em> many </em> things, but he isn't as subtle as he must assume himself to be, not with Kagami. Never with him, because he was named mirror for a reason, because his mother was an assassin and she knew the value of detail in reflection, and Kagami is built in the image of everyone he's ever met. And he's got pieces of Sensei in him too, details he's picked up without realizing it, but the one <em> thing </em>he's never reflected back at his sensei was the same absolute love he saw brief flashes of in red eyes. </p><p>But Kagami isn't in love with him. Not in the way he wants, not fully.</p><p>Kagami can't bring himself to love his sensei completely, not in the way that he knows that other people can with a single person, in the way that Tobirama must hope for (in private, always in private). He's in love in the way a student adores a teacher, the way a friend values a friend, the way one loves someone who knows them better than themselves. But it isn't the heart-stopping, breathless <em> happiness </em> of romance, it isn't <em> choke on bloody petals and let roots tear apart your lungs </em>sort of affection, it isn't--</p><p>It isn't the type of love that's going to save Tobirama. </p><p>But Kagami notices it all the same. He notices it and he grieves it, but he doesn't say anything about the look of pained <em> longing </em>in his teacher's eyes when he stumbles out of practice with Hiruzen in his arms. </p><p>His love, his complete love, is scattered amongst so many people that it won't be enough to save just one. </p><p>
  <b> <em>_____</em> </b>
</p><p> </p><p>He gathers up the petals scattered across the training grounds, counts them all out slowly. They're pretty, familiar. His mother had favored camellia, although not this particular strain, and hers were never this big. <em> Rose of winter </em>, Kagami says, holding them in his lap. Winter fits the elegant paleness of his teacher, but these flowers are far too brightly colored. He'd prefer them to be naturally red, like his Tobirama's eyes, not lovely pink stained by blood. </p><p>They're soft, though. </p><p>He imagines his sensei to be the same. He presses the petals to his mouth, pretends they're his teacher's pale lips, tries to make himself <em> want </em> to make this a reality. But it doesn't work. Kagami moans against them, tastes the iron in the softness, imagines that's how it'll taste when he gets rough like he does with Danzou. He's got so <em> so </em>much love to give. To Hiruzen, to Danzou, to Koharu sometimes when he's bored after a long mission, to that pretty civilian Uchiha girl that's two years older than him and likes to take control, but he doesn't have any of that love left in his chest for someone else to take all of it. </p><p>Uchiha love freely and wildly, like a fire let loose through a forest. They're meant to love thoroughly, but not singularly. Consuming and burning and constantly spreading. </p><p>He presses pearly pink petals against his lips, imagines soft lips and red eyes and the most beautiful white hair, and Kagami feels <em> nothing </em> but absolute regret <em> .  </em></p><p>
  <b> <em>______</em> </b>
</p><p> </p><p>Petals become flowers. Buds and blooms. </p><p>Kagami sees them crumpled in pale hands. Sees them in the wastebasket, sees them stuffed desperately in blue armour, sees them thrown away and shoved away. </p><p>He scoops them up, collects them. Red against pink. Sharp edges, such <em> sharp edges </em>, unnaturally sharp, painfully so. Iron scent, blood and blood and blood. Wet coughs turn into painful hacking in between sentences, muffled by a pale, elegant hand. </p><p>He's handsome, Kagami has always <em> known </em> that. He's handsome, so handsome. A ethereal sort of beauty. Lithe, tall, muscled, so <em> so pale. </em> Beautiful red marks grace his flesh that don't end on his face, strong lines twisting down his wrists, his neck, his torso, wrapping around him like a red thread of fate cut off and consuming him. Kagami's seen him shirtless, because Konoha's summers are unbearable, and he wonders why Tobirama wants <em> him </em> of all people. </p><p>
  <em> Him.  </em>
</p><p>Kagami's handsome, too, he knows. It's whispered against his skin at night by Danzou in the cramped little apartment the other man got after his jonin exams. By Hiruzen pressed up against the brooms in a closet at the bottom of the Hokage tower. He uses it to his advantage on missions, flashes long delicate lashes before he shoves a kunai into a soft throat with finality. War isn't quite a game, but if it were, Kagami's one of the best players at it. But he can see the longing in red eyes, feels the extra tenderness in the touches that are innocent enough (but restrained as to keep it such), and he listens through the door as Tobirama <em> coughs and coughs </em>, wet and thick. </p><p>Gagging up rigid stems and sharp petals. They say love blossoms, and isn't this the cruelest way? </p><p>So Kagami forces himself to pick up as many petals as he can like repentence. Volunteers to tidy up the Hokage's tower, goes through desk drawers and trash bins, through the little plants hanging outside, goes through the training grounds after even Tobirama has left and finds what he can. Ignores the smears of thick, bright blood across trees like wiping off fingertips. He keeps them.</p><p>Presses them in a small book to preserve them, does his best to ignore the ache in his chest that makes it feel like his heart is trying to <em> beat right out </em> , ripping its way to Tobirama for him to preserve like these flowers. He loves him, doesn't want to hurt him, wants to protect him, but he loves many people and many things. And his love is ever changing, ever evolving, but he spares <em> none </em>of those romantics for Tobirama. </p><p>He doesn't mean to hurt him. To drag this out anymore than it already has escalated to. He has to address it. So he does. </p><p>Kagami is many things and has many traits. Valor is one of those many <em> many </em>traits. </p><p>"Hokage-sama." Kagami says with a lopsided smile, familiar and easy. He slips into the room, closes the door behind him, and watches his former teacher's face soften. He relaxes into his chair, giving him the fondest of expressions. </p><p>"Kagami." He sighs, amused. "I've told you many times you don't have to call me that." </p><p>He saunters closer, fast and determined. He sees how pointedly Tobirama doesn't meet his eyes, keeps his gaze on the <em> stacks and stacks </em> of paperwork. There's war going on outside these walls, a brutal and horrifying war, and Kagami wants to absolve him of his burdens and set the world to right. He can't stop an entire war, but he can <em> try </em>to stop this. Kagami settles on the desk, a familiar motion, smiling at the man. </p><p>He's handsome. He's so <em> handsome </em> . Kagami can't give him his entire heart, can't promise something whole when he loves so freely, but he can give him what emotions he has left. He can give him as much love as he can. He loves Sensei. He <em> does love him.  </em></p><p>They settle into a silence. Tobirama working on his papers, and Kagami drumming on the desk with dirt-stained hands. He'd been planting flowers in the garden outside his house, the one his mother had tended so diligently years before. Ironic. </p><p>"Hokage-sama." He breathes out, fluttering his eyes, scooting closer. Leans down on his elbow, settling across the paper. "<em> Tobirama </em>."</p><p>The man has his lips pursed, his entire body rigid and right. He isn't moving, isn't breathing. Sets his pen down, and doesn't look up at Kagami. So he makes the choice for him, grabs the sharp chin, runs finger over the red marking, and they meet eyes. </p><p>Tobirama looks so <em> hopeful </em> and so painfully in love. Lustful and wanting and longing and <em> hopeful </em>. Kagami doesn't want to shatter that, he just wants to save him. He leans in close, presses his lips against the older man's, and moans against them. He tastes of chamomile, and he's soft and firm against him, and it's the sweetest kiss he's ever had, and he grasps onto the man as hard as he can. </p><p>Bites into the older man's lips until he opens his mouth to let Kagami explore that warmth, and prays the shocking iron taste is from bleeding lips instead of from punctured lungs. </p><p>But when he pulls away, there's flowers in his mouth, earthy and sharp and they make his tongue bleed. He spits them out into his hand with dribbles of bright bright red, and Tobirama finally (<em> finally </em> meets his eyes) with the most heartbreaking expression. </p><p>"I'm sorry." He says, earnest and forcibly detatched and oh so <em> brokenly </em>. </p><p>"<em> I'm </em> sorry." Kagami whispers back, because it isn't enough, his kiss isn't enough, his love isn't enough. He pockets the camellias and leans in close. Presses his forehead against Tobirama's as blood drips down both their chins, and he <em> wishes </em>so deeply he could give his entire heart to just one person. </p><p>But he can't. </p><p>(And he isn't sure he would give it completely to Tobirama if he could.)</p><p>"I'm sorry." He repeats again and again, as he slips out of the room. </p><p>Presses his ear against the thin door and listens to the agonized cries and deep, heart-wrenching wet gagging. </p><p>
  <b> <em>______</em> </b>
</p><p> </p><p>He lingers. </p><p>Kagami lingers as the others flee. He stays planted to his spot, legs shaking with fear from an enemy he can't yet see, but knows is coming. Dark eyes caught up in bright, bright red ones. He can't move. </p><p>"Go." Tobirama says slowly. "Now, Kagami." </p><p>"Don't do this." Kagami whispers, shaking his head. He loves him, values him, nobody can make him feel nearly as complete as Tobirama, and he doesn't want to <em> go </em> . He doesn't want to leave him, and maybe his heart can't belong to just <em> one person </em>, but that doesn't mean he can stand to lose a piece of it. He loves him, he does, maybe not enough, but enough for a shard of his feelings to fade away painfully. </p><p>The smile that graces pale lips is much too reassuring and much too reassuring. </p><p>"I'm going to die anyway, Kagami." Tobirama informs, though he steps closer. Puts a hand against his cheek, presses their foreheads togethers. (A kiss would have been a mockery, the one thing that could have saved him that never would.) "Let me do this one final thing for you." </p><p>Kagami offers a watery smile, lopsided and familiar. Good memories, he hopes. "I'm sorry." </p><p>
  <em> For not loving you enough. For leaving you here to die alone. For giving you no choice. For letting you fall in love with me. For giving you this illness.  </em>
</p><p>"I love you." Kagami says, as he slips away into the trees. Leaves him behind. <em> Just not enough.  </em></p><p>Tobirama doesn't say it back, but he spits out camellias with a bloody, mournfully adoring smile.  Draws his blade and they depart in two different directions, and Kagami wonders if it was love or duty that's killing him. </p><p> </p><p>
  <b> <em>______</em> </b>
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